


full circle

by Fleurwinks



Series: last thing we should do is go slow [2]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 14:24:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6910840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fleurwinks/pseuds/Fleurwinks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moving to Tokyo for university is a trope Mayuzumi's read about. Akashi still lives in Kyoto.</p><p>They're not dating and they're skype's biggest veterans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	full circle

**Author's Note:**

> (this pairing is angst central but i just think they have really good potential so i didn’t want to stretch out or dwell in any bullshit, lol, its just a look on what happens after the whole debacle)
> 
> could probably be read as a stand alone piece but it is a continuation from part 1; there is a reference to the manga in here so reading the seirin/rakuzan match will probably help (=´∇｀=）

 

Mayuzumi didn’t ask him over - at all, really. He hadn’t seen Akashi all break, but a few days before he was set to leave for Tokyo Akashi texted him saying he wanted to see him off. And Mayuzumi didn’t say _no_ , but he didn’t have this in mind, either - he pictured a sort of vague goodbye at the train station, but then he decided he'd drive instead and Akashi arrived as he was about to load the van.

Mayuzumi glances at the white, flowery Volkswagen. He grimaces, and definitely owes Mibuchi more than he would like to since he’s the one letting Mayuzumi borrow his family’s vehicle to transport his furniture in (read: his bed frame, mattress, a small table and a lot of miscellaneous shit. He’ll worry about getting more stuff in Tokyo). Mayuzumi frowns. “What did you even say to Mibuchi to get him to agree?”

Akashi picks through the box of books they just lugged outside. “There wasn’t much persuasion involved; Reo is going to Tokyo for a family visit anyway, and said collecting the vehicle wouldn’t be any trouble. Park it where he can see it, if you don’t want him breaking down your door at an inconvenient hour.” He scans the blurb on one of Mayuzumi’s more questionable purchases, and that’s, well. A little embarrassing. “Reo will undoubtably choose to drive home later than most - making sure the gas is full would be a nice token.” Mayuzumi scratches his stomach under his shirt instead of replying, because he isn't going to tell Akashi he already planned to do that.

“Have you read all these?”

“No, most of them are new. I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to just read, so.” Akashi smiles at the colourful cover of the light novel he’s holding, and Mayuzumi could kiss him so easily. Akashi wouldn’t push him off, he knows, would just mould against his mouth, chest, lick into his mouth as soon as he parts it enough. At school, kissing him breathless had been some sort of accomplishment like clearing an obstacle in an intermediate level of a video game, but in Mayuzumi’s driveway, with the only barrier four feet of air that’s separating them, it might be too different to stomach.

Akashi looks right at him and it’s as alarming as the first time. “I have something for your new apartment.”

Oh? “Isn’t a housewarming supposed to be at the actual place.” Mayuzumi watches Akashi kneel to unzip the sports bag he came with slung over his shoulder, and wishes for less array in heartbeat for the new year.

Akashi gives a translucent smile and stands up with an unwrapped box. “Then it's not a housewarming gift.”

‘It’ is a set of kitchen utensils (silverware - can things other than cutlery be called silverware? Anyway, it’s silver), and Mayuzumi never knew so many different knives were necessary for one person to own. It looks expensive, but not one item of clothing Akashi is wearing right now comes off as cheap, so, go figure.

“Thank you.” He takes it. “But I don’t cook much.”

“You’ll become accustomed to it.” Mayuzumi supposes he will, or maybe just grow dependent on instant soup, but.

“Remember to take breaks.”

“You don’t even drive, and you’re telling me that?” Lofty, but really, Mayuzumi doesn’t need to be told; any drive over two hours without stopping makes him feel sick just thinking about it.

“I don’t.” Akashi takes the heavy box from his hands again and puts it among the other smaller items they’ve already loaded. “But I know that five or seven hours could kill you. Make intervals for rest.”

Mayuzumi rolls his eyes. “I just said bye to my mum, actually. I’m low on lecture capacity.” He had just said goodbye to his mum, and she had wanted to know who the “nice redhead” helping him pack was, but then she started whispering _boyfriend?_ and Mayuzumi had no choice other than to push her as far away from Akashi as possible before they could even be introduced.

(They’re not dating, and he told her this with all the conviction he could muster. It wasn’t enough to wipe the suspicion from her face or stop her from grilling him about keeping secrets from her, and he just stood there, with his mum in the kitchen and Akashi in his room down the hallway, thinking _we’re not._)

They must be something, though, considering Akashi is the one currently closing the boot of the van and turning to stare at him.

“If you really minded the mothering so much, you could have made everyone stop by now.” He’s right, of course, so Mayuzumi ignores it by watching the dog across the street go berserk at a cat laying seductively on a crumbling fence.

Akashi says, “If you don’t leave now you won’t reach Tokyo before dinner time.”

Mayuzumi lets the frothing dog slide from his line of vision. “And you have to go, too.”

Akashi nods, and looks really warm under the heat of the sun. Mayuzumi kind of wants to ruffle his hair but he’s not quite there yet (maybe nowhere near there, because it feels like lifting his hand to carry out the action would take an insane amount of force). “So,” Mayuzumi says. “So, I’ll remember to take breaks, don’t bother saying that again.”

Akashi’s eyes do that stupid blinking thing that’s actually probably quite normal considering everyone blinks, but it’s still stupid in its ability to convey understanding.

“Have a safe trip, Chihiro.” His hair looks so soft, though, and Mayuzumi's fisted it before and tousling surely requires less effort —

“Yeah,” Mayuzumi says, hands firmly at his sides. “See you.”

It’s Akashi who reaches out, just as a shiny black car pulls up behind the Volkswagen. He runs his fingers over Mayuzumi’s cheek and they drip off his chin like a fortune teller’s trinket.

“Goodbye.”  

And so soon after he’s turning on the radio while chuffing along the freeway, because silence behind the steering wheel makes time pass thick as syrup.

Mayuzumi knows something eluded him, before, but then he’s never going to be able to collect all the pinprick sized imputations he’s missed so he lets it go.

(He hopes, that one day, he’ll be good enough to catch all the important ones.)

 

* * *

 

“It’s not the same.” Mayuzumi wants to sigh in frustration but he’s too tired. Anyway, Akashi will do it for him.

“I know.”

Skype calls became a thing after Mayuzumi started at university, about two weeks in when he swallowed his pride and told Akashi to download it. (There’s no way Akashi didn’t already have the app. There is no _way_ he hadn’t already thought of the idea but he still let Mayuzumi be the one to propose it and it’s just as maddening as everything else he ever does.)

Half an hour ago they were both wordlessly doing their homework on their respective ends, like a poor rendition of what they would do if they were in the same room, same city. Akashi has finished for the night, it seems, because his books are to the side and he has his head propped up with one hand on his desk. It must have been at least ten minutes before Mayuzumi notices he’s not doing anything, that all his attention is on him, and it’s just short of unnerving.

It always makes him feel like he has to say something, even though by nature he wouldn’t like to have to, and this time it’s ends up being of relative importance instead of the throwaway stings he’s inclined to spout when put on the spot.

_It’s not the same._

Mayuzumi wasn't stupid enough to have thought distance wouldn’t change anything, but it’s still a shock it feels like…like this. Like maybe you woke up one day to find your window gone, and it’s just vanished and there’s this square hole of gaping coldness in the wall that’s off-putting at first, but quickly becomes a standard fixture of your room because you have no other choice. Or if you have to have to get up at an unfair time in the morning and you didn’t sleep early enough the night before, and this goes on every day for a week and then the weekend doesn’t even turn out to be relaxing.

But he starts using his phone more and more because Akashi asks him how his classes are going and if he’s met anyone nice, and Mayuzumi will tell him to appreciate every second he has left of high school and that he sits next to a tallish but kind person in psych who probably plays basketball himself, who knows, and what was Akashi doing up so late go to bed.

And since he’s studying photography anyway he decides it would be okay to send Akashi a picture of the bird he very nearly stepped on just outside campus, but then didn’t even hop away, and it looked very temperamental. That’s probably why he thought of Akashi, honestly, but before he can finish typing out his explanation he’s received a shot of the sky taken from the inside of a classroom. And that starts it.

It’s usually idle things like scenery, or even other people, like the brave girl who showed up to class in her pyjamas (nothing to baulk at if she hadn’t chosen to sleep in lingerie), and one of the strictest Rakuzan teachers going off at someone for wearing their jacket on a scorching hot day. But one time Akashi takes a photo in the mirror, obviously in one of the bathrooms at the inter high venue, to show him Rakuzan’s new jerseys and Mayuzumi thinks ones like those are good, too.

(At one point Hayama texts him ‘tell Sei to add ME on snapchat!!!!’ and frankly, knowing his team sees him taking photos to send Mayuzumi makes Akashi seem nothing like an opponent worth fearing; Mayuzumi thinks he should sell this insight to future opposers.)

One day, he actually looks up what snapchat is and decides _nah_ , even when Mibuchi sends a mass text with the subject titled: 'snapchat EXISTS’ and below reads a lengthy paragraph about spam and useless photos and constant notifications that was apparently spurred by Akashi sending him photos through a group chat for a few days.

Akashi’s never been untouchable, Mayuzumi realises.

Staring at him now is as frustrating as it is surreal, because hundreds of miles away Akashi is sitting at his desk with a grainy video call up on his computer screen so they can each see the other do their homework. And Mayuzumi actively chose to do the same on the third floor of the mud brick apartment complex in the smoky heart of the city.

“It’s not the same,” he says again, and realises he’s only half talking about the Skype call.

 

* * *

 

 

Someone’s having a barbecue, Mayuzumi’s unexpected friend from psych tells him, and did he want to come along?

Mayuzumi asks when and where, and has already made up his mind before Hideo can get around to saying the place.

(Because six is when Akashi said he’d call today.)

He politely declines, says it’s bad timing, and he probably won’t tell Akashi he turned down something like that because if there’s one thing he hounds him about, it’s making friends.

Also, “Sorry, I’m busy tonight, I have to go watch someone do their homework on Skype” sounds so weird in his head Mayuzumi doesn’t think he’ll be telling anyone, be it Hideo or Akashi, anytime soon.

(Something so mundane shouldn’t be an essential part of his day, but if Mayuzumi is honest with himself - and it took some time - being able to look up from his assignments and see Akashi frowning to himself or writing serenely makes his tight deadlines a little more bearable.)

* * *

 

“So wait.” Mayuzumi frowns. “You’ve sprained your knee, or just been straining it too much?”

“Just strained it,” Akashi says, adjusting the ice that must be on his leg under the desk. The surface of dark wood is covered with exercise books and pain medication. “I’ve been told I can only watch over practise until it’s completely better, though."

Mayuzumi imagines Akashi being told what to do by his doctor and feels sorry for whoever has that position. "You're actually going to obey?"

With an amused look, Akashi says, “Yes, I’m going to listen to my doctor’s advice. It will heal quickest that way.”

Mayuzumi hums, “Can’t conquer everything.”

Akashi shifts and makes a face like he’s biting back a hiss. “No."

“You good?”

Akashi nods in reply and Mayuzumi pushes his stapled booklets and pens around wondering whether they’re going to voice that neither one of them has any work left, when Akashi speaks again.

“I liked the shot of the hill.”

The impromptu oblique angle long shot. “The one I emailed you?”

“Mm. I think that should be in your main piece.”

Mayuzumi shrugs, even though he’d hoped for no less praise; he’d spent ages getting the angle right for that one.

“Dunno yet. The deadline's still a way off.” The corner of Akashi’s mouth pulls upward.

“Use it.”

Mayuzumi probably will.

“I might,” he says, and on the other side of the camera he’s looking through now Akashi looks a bit sleepy and sore and he kind of wants to press his mouth against his.

He sits on his hands to dispel the tingling in his fingers.

“You always did train too much,” he tells him. “Even though you told Mibuchi off for staying to practise late that one month."

“He couldn’t take it. I couldn’t risk him overdoing it before a game,” Akashi says. “And you’re going to say I couldn’t take it either, obviously. But I.” His words go soft and Mayuzumi stops him, says, “I get it.”

Because Akashi doesn’t look right at him, instead somewhere at the paisley wallpaper Mayuzumi still hasn’t gotten around to pulling down and he knows he’s thinking _but I can_ , that he’ll take as many slight risks to go forward two steps as whatever higher force will let him because he simply doesn’t - can’t lose again.

“I have to go to bed now,” Akashi says, eyes flicking back from the pale green. “It takes longer to get ready in the morning with my knee."

The world is a deep blue outside Mayuzumi’s yet to be drawn curtains, and the open windows of other apartments’ tenants are the closest things he has to stars. Akashi moves his hand from his knee to rub his eye, looking a hundred times softer than when completely alert. “Don’t,” Mayuzumi immediately curses himself for starting saying anything because he doesn’t know where it’s going, “..sleep on it weird, or anything.”

“I won’t - goodnight, Chihiro,” says Akashi and Mayuzumi is again filled with a deep desire to kiss him.

“Goodnight,” he echoes, and stares at the screen too long after _your call has ended._

* * *

 

 

His mum rings a lot at first. It's unsettling living alone, in the beginning, she tells him, but the conveniences of dancing as you please and walking around indecently are there. Mayuzumi hopes she is doing a lot more dancing in his absence. She's had practise having a whole place to herself in her own college days, but it's a bit strange now without any lazy boys to wake up in the morning.

"I woke you up, half the time," Mayuzumi huffs. Her laughter comes easily through the phone.

"I know, I know. Now I have to get used to my alarm clock again."

There's this ache for home that's whereabouts he can't seem to locate - it's sharp in his stomach, dull in his fingers.

He says, "Put it onto the classical radio channel. That's what mine's set to."

"Hm. That's a nice idea."

She calls for him, she says. So he won't grow up too much just because he's out of her grasp.

Though he might still be a passenger in the junction of adulthood and resistance, he's smart enough to know she must be feeling like the house is too big, as well.

"I do hope you're okay, Chihiro."

Her calls dwindle down to a comfortable, every second day ritual but Mayuzumi still wishes he had brought a photo of her with him.

"Your eyes are a little red," Akashi says ten seconds into their video call. Mayuzumi rubs them hurriedly.

"Well, so are yours." All the diligence of a child's comeback.

"There is a difference between genetics and irritation — "

" _For crying out loud._ "

 

* * *

 

It isn’t something Mayuzumi dwells on when Akashi texts him _are you looking after the silverware correctly_ and he answers _why yes id love to have you over for term break_.

He doesn’t think much of it at all, until Hideo asks him what he’s doing over the holidays and the only logical thing to call Akashi is his boyfriend in the context of “My _____ is staying over for a week”. Friend sounded wrong, significant other even worse than boyfriend and bae was just. Out of the running.

Whatever Akashi is, he’s taking the bullet train to come see him and Mayuzumi feels restless in his empty apartment all morning.

He spends far too long looking at himself in the mirror before he leaves, wants to slap himself on the cheek to snap out of it but then again the skin there’s looking smooth so —  

He really should just _go_.

The pavement doesn’t even trip him as he walks to the station, like it’s moving him along, and of course it’s something surrounding Akashi that makes the universe suddenly want to cooperate.

Trying not to be jostled by the bustling crowd is like trying not to touch swarming scorpion tails whilst standing in a bucket of them, and Mayuzumi feels antsy looking over people’s heads to the whining wheels and tracks. He moves closer because this is the one, and maybe he’ll do something stupid like grab Akashi's suitcase for him and feel something even dumber like wanting to pick him up and spin him around.

Akashi steps off the train and he’s got a scarf, Mayuzumi thinks. It’s not even substantial enough to be deemed a thought, but. Mayuzumi’s been a bit off kilter for the last ten minutes.

Akashi sees him, suitcase in hand, and his eyes are sharp but they’re offset by the soft line of his mouth.

“Hey,” Mayuzumi says, and it comes out more breathily than he expected, and then they’re both walking to each other and he’s got Akashi’s face pressing into his neck and he wasn’t going to hug him but something went wrong, somewhere, because he’s holding him tightly to him.

—  

“I’m not going to cook every night.” Mayuzumi flicks on the back left stove plate. “It’s just for your first day. Expect takeout.” Also, Mayuzumi makes a mean curry he’s been waiting to show off.

Akashi’s face doesn’t change. “Pizza’s always fine.”

“Don’t let your butlers hear that,” Mayuzumi mumbles. Chefs - maids, maybe.

Akashi exhales softly in what might be a laugh. “Contrary to what you might think, I have had takeout delivered before.”

“Yeah?” Mayuzumi switches the oven on to one hundred and eighty. “Like with your friends of lesser societal status?”

“Or like when gourmet crab is really disgusting,” Akashi says. “And hunger strikes at midnight and delivery people can be requested to scale walls.”

His tone's enough his eyes needn't narrow; Mayuzumi feels his lips twitch. “Well, shit.”

Last year, he might have bitten back. But last year Akashi wasn’t leaning over the back of Mayuzumi's chair like he belonged there.

“How are you going with Hideo?” Akashi rests his chin on folded arms.

“We’re passing, we think,” Mayuzumi says. "He gives me his notes if I’ve helped him understand something. And he does play basketball, but he joined the water polo team and he said I should. I might. He eats my food and then realises after he’s done it.” Mayuzumi thinks for a bit, puts the store bought roti prata in the oven. "He ditched his own birthday party to come talk to me on the deck.”

“So you’re getting along well, then,” Akashi confirms.

“You grill me enough about making friends when you aren’t here,” Mayuzumi says, effortlessly peeved.

It’s not like spending a lot of time alone is anyone else’s choice other than his, and it pisses Mayuzumi off that personalities like his get associated with loners or involuntary outcasts at default. Maybe if everyone spent a bit more time with themselves there wouldn’t be so many bothersome people doing foolish things for attention because they took the time to sit with the quiet.

He’s going to summarise something like that for Akashi but —

“It’s not like I could be bothered buying my own,” he says, because he notices Akashi staring at the tongs in his hand.

Akashi smiles, “Of course you couldn’t.” It’s so unbridled it takes Mayuzumi’s breath away for a moment, and he turns back to the stove and thinks about whether Akashi has changed enough that he smiles like that at everyone now, or if it’s just for him.

That night he’s pleased to find Akashi’s sensitive spots are still the same and they both come apart after months of not touching each other. Akashi is already stroking his cock back to full hardness when he’s still coming down from his own high and Mayuzumi mutters “Just sex, yeah?” into the younger boy’s neck. His smirk presses into his skin and he kisses there quickly, can tell Akashi’s mouth is quirked upward without looking.

Getting to lie next to Akashi afterwards when he’s all pliant and complacent and pink in the cheeks makes him think maybe his bucket list won’t have to be all that long.

 

* * *

 

 

The weather is surprisingly good outside, all nearly-midday sun. He hears the pad of Akashi’s feet crescendo and stop somewhere to his right.

“What are you reading?”

Mayuzumi scoffs. “The same as yesterday.”

He looks up, and isn’t surprised to see Akashi completely unperturbed. He’s got his laptop in his hands.

“You wanna go out?” Akashi shakes his head.

“I was wondering if you’d mind me sitting here.”

Mayuzumi blinks at the formality, but he's a little pleased Akashi thought about how he likes to read alone.

“Go ahead."

Akashi settles next to him on the squishy two person couch that Mayuzumi found at a second hand shop, and was surprised to hear Hideo call it ‘thrifted’ since he always associated the word with rough, oversized sweaters girls wore that still smelled like the grandpa they used to belong to. It’s spacious enough that Akashi doesn’t have to touch him from where he’s sitting, watching some crime show off his laptop with the subtitles up so the volume could be on low. He’s a lot more considerate of Mayuzumi’s preferred conditions for reading now, compared to always banging open the door and interrupting him all those lunch times. Of course, headphones would do the trick just fine, if Mayuzumi hadn’t put them through the wash in Akashi’s jean pocket (considering what Akashi can afford, they really should have been a more durable type, anyway), but Akashi says he doesn’t mind just reading the dialogue from the screen.

"Is it the housekeeper?"

The woman serving scones definitely looks suspicious, but then Mayuzumi hasn't been analysing the cinematic construction like a certain someone.

"Couldn't say yet."

Even though there’s enough room, Akashi curls up against his side with his head leaning on his shoulder, and the back of Mayuzumi’s mind sings ‘warm warm warm warm warm’.

 

* * *

 

On Akashi’s last day in Tokyo he sits differently at his kitchen bench. His form is leaning ever so slightly forward and when Mayuzumi hands him his tea (which he was entrusted to brew even after the first few awful attempts) he leans even further, all the way to his mouth.

They spend the few hours they have in the city, because Mayuzumi feels bad they spent so much time not really doing much at all and he can’t quite comprehend the idea that Akashi came all this way for just one reason.

(He doesn’t let himself think what that reason is because he knows he’ll feel too hot in his clothes.)

So he assigns the other reason to sightseeing, which turns out to be useless since Akashi has seen a lot of Tokyo in his life already, but then he thinks of something good and they wander around until they find it.

There’s this jazz cafe, and there’s this set of steps leading up to a garden. At the bottom of the stone staircase there’s a set up of street shogi, always occupied with regulars and new challengers and clustered with onlookers.

They arrive towards the end of a match between a thirtyish year old man and an older woman. Akashi bumps their arms together as they slow to a halt.

“Are you going to play me?” Mayuzumi bumps him back.

“Of course I’m not; I’m going to watch you play whoever wins this round.” In a second it becomes clear it is the man, and the woman looks a mix of pissed and assaulted.

“Is it okay you’re just watching?”

“Yeah,” Mayuzumi pushes Akashi to the guy and the board. “Have fun.”

How confident the man's smile is when Akashi settles down on the step almost makes Mayuzumi want to warn him.

He doesn’t because the guy seemed quite assholish in the glimpses of his last game they saw, and while the look on people’s faces when Akashi did something unexpected during basketball made Mayuzumi roll his eyes, something tells him seeing it on this guy will be quite amusing.

Asshole gives a good show, his expression contorting from cockiness to an array of grimaces as Akashi demonstrates the very essence of his whole prodigy thing. The game’s actually interesting to watch, more so when Akashi is victorious and the Asshole switches from staring unbelievingly at the board to Akashi in rapid succession.

A short, white haired man with smile lines by his eyes hobbles up. He must be quite revered in this little community, because the crowd parts for him and whispers break out about how this young genius is going to get shown up something awful.

“Better luck next time, Yuu-kun.” He pats the shocked Asshole on the shoulder. “May I have a go?” The Asshole stands up for him immediately, and the old man smiles at Akashi.

“Let’s play.” They bow to each other slightly, and Mayuzumi thinks if Akashi were humble more often he could be classified as cute.

The match is a long one, and when Akashi eventually wins half the surrounding viewers act as if they have been bestowed a new messiah while the other half look ready to pray for forgiveness. Or something.

The man is just pure happiness, and shakes Akashi's hand, and they start to talk about something shogi related. Mayuzumi remembers something Akashi told him about the importance of finding a worthy challenger in the game you love.

Akashi must feel his stare, because he turns to him. Mayuzumi has never congratulated someone like Akashi before —

“You’re brilliant,” slips out. The angle Akashi’s looking up at him with game pieces in his hand should be akin to a child searching a parent for approval or praise, but the look on his face completely ruins it.

“Did you doubt that, Chihiro?”

The next match, Mayuzumi decides he'll root for the elderly opponent.

 

* * *

 

Even for Akashi, coming down from Kyoto just for a weekend (more like one day and one night when train times are accounted for) would be too expensive to do all the time. After the term break, midway to the next one, he does it once, and it’s a few weekdays after that Mayuzumi feels like crying. He doesn’t though, the whole day, even though that’s roughly the amount of time he spends with a jack in the box lump down his throat.

He gets into his room and flops with his bag onto his bed, checks his phone out of habit.

He has a new message from Akashi.

_Are you busy?_

And he replies

_no, but the internet is down_

It’s not, he’s opening his laptop right now to email his professor back, but he doesn’t want Akashi to see him at the moment. Or hear him, really. His phone starts ringing and he hesitates. He’s never purposefully let Akashi’s calls go unanswered, but he’s not sure if he’s even feeling like Akashi’s voice right now. Letting it ring through feels worse, though, so he picks up and knows his “hey” sounds heavy.

“Hi. How —”

“Not good.” Akashi always speaks so unhurriedly, and Mayuzumi wants fast, like a punch in the gut or a kick in the right direction.

“Did something happen?” Nothing happened. Nothing properly  _notable_ , but Mayuzumi still feels like shit and maybe that sort of hurting when you were five and your mum patted her lap for you to crawl into when you were on the verge of tears over. Something.

“It’s - I don’t know. Just. Not good.”

There’s silence down the line and then: “I can’t come down again this weekend, my dad’s still annoyed I was gone the whole two days last time.”

Mayuzumi clenches his jaw. “That’s not what I was getting at.”

“Okay,” Akashi says, and it might just be the state of mind he’s in, but Mayuzumi swears he hears a note of disbelief in his voice.

It pisses him off, as if Akashi thinks he can solve everything with his presence, as if he thinks Mayuzumi will go stir crazy without him.

“I’m not lonely,” he says abruptly, and he’s so tired he doesn’t bother worrying about how irrationally defensive he must sound.

Akashi sounds soft when he answers. “I didn’t mean it like that, Chihiro.”

But he also sounds three hundred miles away.

Mayuzumi doesn’t say anything straight away in case he sounds distant, too, but Akashi isn't as courteous. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

Yes. But what is there to say - he’s just had a really shit day, is all, and telling Akashi isn’t going to help anything.

“No.” It doesn’t even sound fake to his ears.

“Should I go for now, then?”

He thinks about what Akashi will do when he hangs up. He could go out and practise basketball or train, or call his weird miracles network and talk to them, or ride his horse or get driven to a cafe and Mayuzumi feels unwarranted anger because all he will be able to do when left by himself is school work and cooking and laundry. He feels trapped, and despite his earlier claim, yes, he does feel alone sometimes.

Especially today, and not just because of the empty space in his apartment. It was a bad day with people in general, one where he felt disconnected instead of okay with how little peoples’ lives he impacts and Hideo has been sick for three days. It doesn’t feel like he has anyone else. Over so many years of trying to figure out _why_ and _help_ and finding comfort in _it doesn’t matter_ , he shouldn’t be getting like this. But it was one of those times today when he got brushed past by someone who hadn’t seen him and he’d felt like crying.

“Fine,” he snaps, resists the urge to blurt _no_. “‘s fucking fine, go.”

“Chihiro, what’s —”

A dull ache is building under Mayuzumi's temples and he leaves no room for response when he says “You can go already. Bye,” and hangs up.

He turns his phone on airplane mode maybe to more easily ignore any incoming calls or escape the lack of. Kind of wanting to punch something and definitely feeling worse than before, Mayuzumi tries to focus on writing that email.

 

Dear Professor Tanaka,

I havent done the fucking assignment

[backspace to start]

dear TANAKA

hey how are you i couldnt be less interested in what you are teaching us sitting in your class literally makes me want to scream

i want a degree i dont want your bullshit i knwo yuo didnt take that long to mark all our shit youre just lazy and i had a better reason for not doing my work it was because i had the flu for five days and couldnt even get medicine because i couldnt leave the house

AND HIDEO WAS SICK TOO SO HE COULDNT HAVE GOTTEN IT FOR ME IF THATS YOUR SHITTY RESPONSE

[backspace to start]

if i hand you the gun can you just fuck me up please

o/bcwhur3qoiihhh

please t-dog, i cant fucki/

 

He _can’t_ focus and decides to go out, and not because everything in his apartment makes him annoyed with reminders of Akashi sat there or Akashi looked at that, or he smiled at him from this spot. No, it’s because he desperately needs more food.

The grocery shop’s fluorescent lighting helps keep his mind off feeling bad about the phone call, and it’s great because whenever he feels the sick feeling of guilt creep into his stomach he can rip a plastic bag off the roll as viciously as he likes.

He stays in his mad haze until he’s served by someone with brightly dyed red hair and a too big smile and then he’s out of the shop, hand fumbling for his phone and even the leaves he’s stepping on let out a sigh of relief when Akashi picks up on the second ring.

(“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I had a fucking terrible day and you were right, I miss you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I miss you a lot.”

“I miss you, too.”

Mayuzumi laughs giddily and his breath puffs like plumes in the air.

“What are you doing?”

“Just homework.” Mayuzumi pictures Akashi sitting at his desk, in a comfortable t-shirt and running his hand through his hair, looking stupidly pretty with his eyes and skin and smile.

“Good,” he huffs a little, his nose starting to sting with how numb it is. “I mean, it’s not good, but it’s not a bad thing —"

“Where abouts outside are you?”

“Coming from the store. Passing the stoop."

“Want to talk now?”

Mayuzumi looks up at the sky, pale from the city. “Later.”)

It’s a late night video call when they’re both lying on their sides and can pretend they’re on the same bed when Mayuzumi says everything, how lately it’s a matter of failing self conviction to keep him afloat upon the hubs of people who talk more, who star more, who are more.

Akashi is as tepid as the glow of a street light. “That’s not the guy I met on the rooftop.”

Mayuzumi’s heart flickers too far up because Akashi —

“You remember that? Weren’t too caught up in the game?”

Akashi hums and pulls his doona up to his chin. “I do.”

Mayuzumi whispers, faux demanding: “Ask me who I am” as if he’s calling for a stage prompt. Akashi smiles in the dark and obliges with an arrogant “Who are you?” that has got to be mocking Mayuzumi. He just snickers, “I am Mayuzumi Chihiro,” in a bad impression of Akashi’s haughty tone and through quiet laughter they both find themselves touching the screen at the same time.

When they have to end the call Mayuzumi thinks the ocean inside of him is finally becoming level.

 

* * *

 

“Fuck,” he says, pacing. “Fuck everything, fucking fuck - fucking punch me in the face, I can’t do this.”

“Chihiro, it’s going to be okay. Please sit down.” Akashi sounds slightly warped through his laptop speaker, and Mayuzumi mentally tallies that as the third strike in favour of getting a new one.

He sits back on his bed, but he just can’t —

“Shut up,” Akashi sighs when he flops onto his back shouting profanities. Mayuzumi rises slowly.

“Sei- _chan_ ,” he says bruisingly, “I am going to fail this exam. I seriously don’t think I’ll be able to scrape through and you’ll see, when I have a big red ‘F’ and a dunce hat on —”

“No you won’t,” Akashi interrupts. “If you were that likely to fail, you would be cramming your notes right now instead of talking to me.”

The birds that always sit on the telegraph line outside Mayuzumi’s window are chirping as insistently as the sunlight streaming through the blinds.

“I said I was going to call you this morning, I couldn’t go back on it,” Mayuzumi argues. He watches as Akashi finishes towel drying his hair, surfacing to smile knowingly at him.

“If you say so.” He puts his socks on first, which is a weird way to dress yourself if you ask Mayuzumi. The black pants next. “Though I believe you are perfectly capable, lacking confidence in yourself will only lower your potential.” He slips an arm into the white button down shirt. “Do you believe in luck, Chihiro?”

Mayuzumi rolls his eyes. “Is this more of that horoscope crap?”

“Sharp,” says Akashi. “But as Shintarou says, man proposes, God disposes. You may find reassurance in having prepared in accordance with the stars.”

Mayuzumi raises an eyebrow. “You don’t believe in that stuff - do you?”

Shirt buttoned up and tie hanging around his neck, Akashi shrugs his shoulders. “I think it has the distinct ability to make you believe in your fortune and end up performing more optimistically.”

“Should I look up my lucky...whatsamacallit then?” Mayuzumi says reluctantly, but Akashi is already on his phone.

“Shintarou downloaded an app for me, it tells you. Pisces’ lucky item for today is...an object with sentimental value.”

He looks up. Mayuzumi frowns. “They can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not...specific enough.”

“Well,” Akashi says, “it sounds pretty particular to me.”

Mayuzumi doesn’t disagree because he’s already too busy scanning his room for something sentimental. It’s useless; all his old things like stuffed toys, picture books and photo albums are at his house in Kyoto, and he likes his figurine collection but not that much, Jesus —

His eyes fall on his bedside set of drawers.

“I think I have something,” he turns back to Akashi, but doesn’t meet his eyes.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

Akashi tilts his head encouragingly and Mayuzumi bristles. “Stop looking at me like that! I’m not going to tell you what it is.”

“Suit yourself.” Akashi shrugs on his blazer, and looking at it only makes Mayuzumi’s face heat up.

So he says: “I’m still going to fail, though.”

“You’ll be fine. I have the utmost confidence you will at the very least pass; you have learnt all the content over the semester and you are smart, so don’t talk yourself down. I know you’re going to do well.” Something struggles in Akashi’s eyes and Mayuzumi feels the rest of his nerves drain for the moment to make room for being a little shit.

“Say it,” he says.

Akashi pauses. “Chihiro...”

“Come on.”

“You always make fun of me —”

“Say it. I know you want to.”

Akashi exhales resignedly and looks off, a very undetectable version of embarrassed. “My word is absolute.”

Mayuzumi allows himself a smile. “ _Now_ I believe you.” If Akashi swore more frequently he would probably tell him to fuck off, but as it is he shakes his head with a mirroring smile and they have to say goodbye as they set off for their respective schools.

Mayuzumi grabs the button on the way out and rubs it between his thumb and forefinger in his pocket (for luck, how ludicrous) the whole way there.

It _is_ calming.

* * *

 

 

It’s his March visit to Kyoto when Mayuzumi has a series of utterly terrifying firsts.

The first is meeting Akashi’s dad and it’s as daunting and rigid as one would imagine.

If Mayuzumi’s going to have a stay at Akashi’s house while he’s down, meeting his father is kind of unavoidable. Akashi had already met Mayuzumi’s mum when Mayuzumi was home just for her birthday weekend, and Akashi had shown up unexpectedly that night. He arrived perfectly timed after the dinner had ended, and Mayuzumi was in the kitchen when he heard his mother’s surprised exclamation from the doorway. And…it's so typical of him. Mayuzumi had told Akashi he’d see him the next day, but there he was on his _doorstep_.

He’d brought a bouquet of flowers for his mum and she had been charmed out of her pants, so much that whenever Akashi’s name is mentioned Mayuzumi swears her eyes sparkle.

(And he’d felt half pissed off half melancholic, because it used to be his dad who showed up in a suit and with flowers when it was getting dark outside, and the vase his mum kept on the kitchen counter would be filled and she would laugh as he kissed her on the cheek. Then the flowers stopped, and the laughing stopped, and his dad stopped coming home on time and then stopped altogether and Mayuzumi didn’t know what to do because his mum was crying at the kitchen table and he felt rotten for missing his dad but he couldn’t snub that part of him that wanted their normality back. He never could, and when Akashi has a loosened tie and white dress shirt casually leaning on their counter he starts thinking and can’t stop and feels sad about a few things. Until his mum is talking to him later with this look on her face that’s a mix of peacefulness and barely disguised anguish, tells him that she’s so happy he has someone like that and he does cry then, something he hasn’t done in front of her since the flower vase first went completely dry.)

While Akashi made an overly good first impression and made their kitchen smell of roses, Mayuzumi isn’t aiming for anything profound on his stay at the Akashi residence.

Survival is optimal, really.

 _Good luck_ , Mibuchi sends him. _I hear Sei-chan lives in a mansion!_ (Mayuzumi’s primary worry had been if Akashi’s emperor eye was catching because how could Mibuchi have known he was visiting, so he asks if Akashi is rubbing off on him. His second worry is how to block numbers because Mibuchi replies with _I thought he was rubbing off on you ☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜)_ .)

It’s just shy of a mansion, actually - key word being ‘just’, because it’s still a breathtakingly huge estate. Mayuzumi thinks it’s strange how such a gigantic house can feel so stifling, then realises that sounds like bad amateur poetry and quickly backtracks his thoughts to _that is a very rare looking pot plant_.

Akashi’s father is intimidating as expected, and peeing on the - probably royal quality - carpet isn’t a characteristic of an ideal house guest so Mayuzumi is careful not to hold eye contact for too long.

But Mayuzumi has good manners and knows a bit about computers and latches onto the topic when Akashi’s dad brings it up at the table, and overall he gets through dinner pretty smoothly.

“I’m sorry,” Akashi says when they make it upstairs.

“It was fine,” Mayuzumi says, like he’s totally not wiping the sweat off his hands right now.

“No,” Akashi sighs, and pushes the door to his room open. “Unfortunately, though, it had to happen at some point.” Mayuzumi hasn’t been into Akashi’s room, yet - he stayed downstairs for the forty minutes between arriving and dinner and his case had been whisked off by some maid who must have been strong as hell to lug it up all those stairs. It’s a nice room, nice with a capital N - all rich colours and well positioned furniture. There’s a futon set up next to the queen sized bed, and Mayuzumi wonders if Akashi assembled it himself.

“Ah, well,” Mayuzumi says, traversing right past the futon and sitting on the bed. “It’s over with.”

“That’s the only positive thing to come out of it.”

Akashi goes over to a wardrobe of dark woo **d,** and starts unbuttoning his shirt. It looks quite stiff, had made Mayuzumi feel uncomfortable at the dinner table because he was underdressed compared to Akashi and his dad, and he doesn’t blame Akashi for changing. But he feels heat climb up his neck watching him undress, and looks away from Akashi’s pale back.

It’s weird; he’s seen Akashi without a shirt in far more compromising situations without feeling even a shred of indecency; he’s felt that skin pressed up, wet with sweat, against his chest, torso, while fucking and after. He sees Akashi’s bones move under his skin and suddenly doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it.

“We could put a on a dvd if you’re tired,” Akashi says, hair mussed from pulling a shirt over it.

And of course there’s a TV in his room. Mayuzumi wants to laugh because he doesn’t even have one in his apartment yet.

Akashi finds a movie they both haven’t seen yet - on a _burned disc_ and Akashi simply mutters “Hayama” when he sees Mayuzumi staring at it - and pops it into the flatscreen. It’s on the wall, held up someway Mayuzumi hasn’t quite figured out yet, but promptly dismisses when Akashi lies next to him.

“I’m not really going to sleep on the futon, am I,” Mayuzumi mumbles.

Akashi says, “Of course not; we’ll mess it up accordingly for the morning.”

There’s something in psych about how, when restricted, children often administrate discreet ways of rebellion.

With opening credits buzzing onto the screen, he feels Akashi’s cheek press against his shoulder and looks down at him. He’s dressed casually, just in a light grey t-shirt and black jeans, with leather bracelets on one wrist. But he looks so _good_ in it all, especially lying pressed up to Mayuzumi’s side with his face lax and eyes all soft.

Mayuzumi can’t help it, and reaches to stroke the cheek that’s not pressed into his shoulder and is transfixed when Akashi closes his eyes and lets him.

His skin is really soft, even though Mayuzumi didn’t see any lotion bottles around the room when he looked but then there’s always the bathroom. He pulls him by his jaw coaxingly, and sets his palm flat against the back of Akashi’s neck as they kiss.

It’s just slow, languid licks into hot mouths but Mayuzumi still feels like he’s drowning by the time they part. Akashi is more or less on top of him and there’s a red circle on his left cheek from where he was leaning on him before.

“You just,” he wishes he could stop staring, “look really good.”

Akashi’s mouth quirks into a smile. “Thank you. You look nice, too.”

“That was obligatory.”

“Untrue. You’re always very good looking.”

Mayuzumi says, “Yeah right."

"It happens all the time,” their legs tangle on the bed, “I’ll look at you when you’re doing the simplest of things,” - his fingers twist in Mayuzumi’s hair - “and you’ll be so attractive I don’t know what to do about it.” He kisses lazily at the corner of Mayuzumi’s mouth, his skin all too yielding. “If it’s when we’re out somewhere, I want to get you away from people so they don’t get to stare at you, because they must be thinking what I am - that you are undeniably handsome,” his lips press over the column of his throat, “and would look good on top of them.” Mayuzumi runs his hands up and down Akashi’s back, and like a pacified cat he makes a pleased sound, closes his eyes. He’s back kissing at his mouth now, kisses for a while, then murmurs against his lips, “Or under them, really.” Mayuzumi shakes his head and their noses bump.

“You don’t seriously think that.”

Akashi’s teeth flash, all straight white pillars, in his next smile.

“You’re right - I have the pleasure of knowing.”

They digress into lazy making out after that, all caressing hands and wet, warm mouths slanting in every which way to find what feels good. They miss all the important parts of the movie so they decide to go to just go to bed, since Mayuzumi’s nearly asleep as it is.

(They’re apart so much they have to make the most of nights when they aren’t, so its rare to just _sleep_ in the same bed without actually sleeping together. But Akashi’s house is turning out to be a treasure trove of rare things.)

-

The next first is when Akashi is going to meet up with his friends from Teiko, and he asks if Mayuzumi would like to join. He says no straight away, out of practise maybe, and the fact he has some reading he’d like to catch up on while Akashi’s out.

The horse likes him, anyway. He can sit with her.

Akashi is putting on his socks on the day when Mayuzumi says, “I want to come.”

“Okay.” Akashi smiles softly.

It’s probably due to some terribly corny reason, like wanting to find out about the important parts of Akashi’s life or something, and it’s not the first time Mayuzumi wonders if he’s in too deep.

Surprisingly enough, it’s Kise Mayuzumi finds himself talking to most of the time. Kise sits next to him in the booth and kind of latches onto him, giving him attention like he wants to - and Mayuzumi realises with surprise that he _does_ \- and sure, he’s perky as hell but it’s really refreshing to find someone who hasn't succumbed to teenage woes.

When they’re all saying goodbye Kise calls him Mayuzumicchi and Mayuzumi asks what the hell he did to deserve that. Kise leans in and says quietly, “We’re all in awe of you for being with Akashicchi, believe me.” And the Generation of Miracles really could have been a lot worse.

The last installation of the thrilling saga is his first public display of affection. In _public_. It’s not conventional affection but it’s still endearing.

They are sitting at an outdoor cafe and Akashi has been slightly distant the whole morning.

"I'm glad you liked my friends."

"I'm glad they didn't shun me for not being cult obsessed with basketball," Mayuzumi replies.

"It was nice of Kise to pay special attention in getting to know you." 

"Yes, it was."

“Do you think Kise is good looking?” The order he’s punching out statements - if there's an order, there must be a reason.

“Yeah,” Mayuzumi answers slowly, but without hesitation.

Akashi’s waiting for him to continue

“So what? So do agents and publishers. And Japan, in general, he’s getting really popular —"

“And Aomine.”

“Touou’s ace?”

“They’re together.”

Oh. That’s…honestly not a huge surprise, considering what of their dynamic Mayuzumi has seen. Good for them? Mayuzumi raises an eyebrow and picks up some more noodles.

Akashi wipes his mouth with a napkin. “So you can’t try to get with him.”

Mayuzumi’s chopsticks still midway to his mouth.

“What? You were worried I was going to?” Akashi is suddenly very busy taking a sip of his drink. Mayuzumi sighs.

“I was never wanting to try to “get with him”?"

“The amount of attention you focussed on him says otherwise.” It sounds clipped and Mayuzumi looks at him incredulously. But Akashi won’t let him catch his eye, focussing intently on his tofu. In fact, he’s focussing so hard that Mayuzumi can see the figurative laser beam burning through the china plate to the table to the concrete and probably a significant way into the earth’s crust.

“You can’t be serious. Sei - Sei,” and Akashi finally meets his eyes.

“I’m not interested in Kise," he says, and then says “idiot” because this is weird. A weird, unnecessary conversation.

“But when he,” Akashi pauses. “He was whispering to you and you laughed.” The hiyayakko is garnering chopstick stab wounds and if Mayuzumi weren’t so taken aback by what he was hearing he would feel sorry for it. Akashi’s jaw shifts and he looks straight at Mayuzumi. “You don’t laugh that much with me.”

Mayuzumi wants to simultaneously kiss Akashi on the mouth and get up and walk away.

“Don’t be so stupid you - we both know you don’t tell jokes.” He even said so, he told him. “And I smile at you all the time.” He must know that. Probably doesn’t think it’s as much as it is because sometimes it’s when Akashi isn’t looking. What a dumb thing to say. To feel compelled to say.

“Kise was actually talking about you,” he says quietly. “Seijuurou, I have - I still have your button you gave me.” Mayuzumi knows he’s blushing and hates it but maybe if he looks at a bird he can misdirect Akashi’s attention and no, that’s stupid, what the hell.

Unfortunately, he’s got to finish what he’s begun, even if it’s with the four o’clock sun making his face feel too hot for words. “I’m sitting here with you, aren’t I?”

Akashi lets up on destroying his tofu in favour of covering Mayuzumi’s hand on the table with his own.

“Good.”

(Mayuzumi’s fuming on the inside because, after all that, he’s the one blushing.)

Later that day Mayuzumi discovers Momoi’s number in his contact list. after hesitating for a moment he thinks to hell with it and texts her

_did Seijuurou used to get emotionally constipated in middle school?_

and within a minute he gets a reply of _oh my gosh yes._

And exchanging data with Momoi is actually quite fun.

 

* * *

 

Akashi wants him to come watch a game. Mayuzumi doesn’t.

(Akashi doesn’t say he wants him to come specifically, but the implication is clear when he suggests that Mayuzumi _should_. And Mayuzumi doesn’t specifically not want to watch Akashi play but it’s the whole thing, in the stadium with the crowd and skidding sports shoes and benched members he’s not sure he wants to see again.)

Maybe it will be different from the stands.

In the end he goes - of course he goes, it’s not often he has a break while a tournament is still on and he’d feel guilty as shit if he didn’t. Also, Akashi’s ‘suggestions’ aren’t really just suggestions from anybody else’s viewpoint.

It’s the first match of the semi-finals and Akashi is still leading Rakuzan; it'd be pure stupidity if he wasn’t. They win with minimal struggle and after the tangle of team hugs and thank yous Akashi is looking out to the stands like he’s searching for his face.

Mayuzumi stays just outside the doors, a corridor he remembers from that one Winter Cup. It’s such an awful thing, how unashamedly his stomach swoops when Akashi walks around the corner and comes right up to him, grabs him by the wrist and takes him to the end of the passage way until he pulls him into a discreet restroom. Of course Akashi has the whole building scoped out.

It makes him think of ages ago, when locker room rendezvous were all that was holding them together. Mayuzumi looks at Akashi to see if maybe he’s thinking about it, too. He’s still wearing his jacket that stupid way he does, shrugged over his shoulders like a cape, and Mayuzumi takes pleasure in pushing it off when he wraps his arms around Akashi’s waist.

He’s warm, albeit a bit sweaty, but Mayuzumi’s been there before, and he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a good look on Akashi.

“So,” Mayuzumi looks around the bathroom. "It’s just like before, huh.”

“Except for the showers.” Akashi’s voice comes out muffled from his shoulder and Mayuzumi bites his lip to keep from laughing.

“Speaking of which, shouldn’t you ought to be having one? In your team’s change room, as well.” It’s only a year after, and Mayuzumi knows any ex-player from Kaijo or Touou would slip and say their team, but it never was his. He doesn’t mind.

“I’ll need another one after this, anyway.”

“What are we going to be doing that’ll get you dirty, Sei?” Mayuzumi’s good at teasing now, discovered his affinity for dirty talk one late night phone call when neither of them could sleep, and he can feel Akashi tense against him. He plays with the hem of the back of Mayuzumi’s t-shirt and, when he realises Mayuzumi wants an answer, sighs: “You’re the one who’s good at saying this sort of stuff.”

Mayuzumi pushes Akashi’s jersey collar off centre to find the bruises he knows are there. He thumbs over one that had bled from his teeth. “You like people seeing this. You probably got off on it during the game. But maybe you want me to mark you with my come," he murmurs into Akashi’s ear. “Don’t want anyone else seeing you like that."

And Akashi must have found that hot or something because he’s latched onto his neck and spinning a cubicle lock in the next second.

 

* * *

 

(“Congratulations, by the way.”)

* * *

 

It’s when he’s reading his light novel and Akashi is doing something on the computer that Mayuzumi realises: they’re dating.

Akashi is lying on his couch with one leg dangling off the end, the other crossed over it, his laptop propped on one of those plastic board things made specifically for preventing radiation (or whatever else happens when you put your laptop right on your body without a separating layer, which they found at yet another thrift store and thought _why not_ ), and he’s in probably ninety-two percent Mayuzumi’s clothes.

The kitchen chairs aren’t that comfortable to sit on for long, so Mayuzumi goes over and nudges Akashi to lift his body up so he can sit on the couch, too, and his hand find’s Akashi’s hair as soon as he’s lowered his head onto Mayuzumi’s lap.

And. Yeah. They’re probably dating.

It’s a bit weird, considering they haven’t even spoken confirmation, just soft goodnights and Be Careful and Are You Warm Enough and: Your Hair Looks Fluffy. It translates well enough, Mayuzumi thinks, but still. Maybe there’s some sort of unspoken set of terms that no one will make it official official. Permanent official. High contrast, black and white official.

That night, he gets a call from his mum and she says when he visits next to bring Sei over for dinner.

(She called him Sei.)

How strange. Stranger still how Akashi is sharper than a pinpoint and Mayuzumi is as vague as a landscape, and they’ve spent the last year basking in each other’s comfort.

Akashi, sharp little thing, picks up on it too and mentions it when they’re lying on Mayuzumi’s bed, still in the clothes they wore out.

“Do you know what,” Akashi says, and Mayuzumi can tell he’s glad under his smooth apathy. “We are definitely dating.”

Mayuzumi proffers, “You probably knew we would have become something.” Akashi shakes his head. His hair tickles the side of his face and while usually Mayuzumi would be half consciously using that as inspiration for describing fields of grass blades, he frowns.

“You must have predicted.”

“None of it.” Mayuzumi blinks because this must the first thing Akashi has ever been involved with that he hasn’t orchestrated.

“Whatever,” he says instead. “It’s best like this because I never had to confess to you.”

“Confess what to me, Chihiro?” Akashi’s got a glint and this smug look that usually gets him pissed and guarantees rough necking against a wall with his thigh pressed between Akashi’s, but Mayuzumi's already decided he’s going to show him up this time.

“That I love you,” he says easily.

It comes out with less effort than he expected, even though it’s foreign and yet to be polished with use. He has to fight down a blush and bite the inside of his cheek not to break eye contact but it’s worth it because Mayuzumi, and almost definitely no one else, has ever seen Akashi _bashful_.

“Well,” he says eventually, face levelling out as quickly as it had changed, “I’m glad you never had to. That would have been embarrassing." Mayuzumi doesn’t say anything because his hand is in Akashi’s hair and it’s so soft but so is the inside of his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> i have a few things to say about this, from akashi's dad not being a homophobe to trying to put my babs aokise in there somewhere lol but i might do a (shorter) part 3 from akashi's POV that will feature more of his life anyway and that will explain...stuff....so comment if thats interests you (too bad ill probably write it anyway)
> 
> also i don't know how universities work, I'm not sure if mayu's course I've made is even possible lol


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